บท 8: Benefits of learning Occlumency

"What are you reading?" Padma Patil asked as she chewed on a chicken leg and Harry wondered if she knew how much it pissed him off when someone disturbed him when he was reading something.

Regardless, he calmed his emotions and gave her a blank look for a few moments in order to unnerve her before he showed her the cover of the book.

"The Simplicity of Wards?" she said and looked at him in the eyes and he suddenly realized how close she was to him and unconsciously shrank back and watched with some grim satisfaction as her face turned red as well.

"Why are you reading such a high level book? And I don't think it's in the course either, is it?" she asked curiously and Harry wondered if he should tell her to 'fuck off' and be done with it. But he wanted the reputation of a anti social guy not a rude asshole so he answered in as uninteresting terms as he could.

"Hmm..." he said noncommittally.

She gazed at her for a moment longer but when no reply came she blushed once again and Harry smiled in his heart before he went back to studying the book once again.

"Why are you reading it?" she asked and he sighed before closing the book for good this time. He really doubted that he would be able to read it with her constantly pasturing him about it.

"Because I want to increase my knowledge in setting up wards." He replied and looked past her in order to see why she was not bothering someone else.

Turned out that the boy sitting beside Padma was a quidditch enthusiast who was talking rather excitedly with a girl from Asian descent who could be none other than Cho Chang. So she really had no choice but to talk with him or remain silent.

Seemed like she didn't want to remain silent on her first day of the school.

"Aren't wards the kind of things that keep thieves out of your house?" she asked curiously.

"Among other things." He replied and upon her inquiring gaze, went on to explain the basics of ward and how they could be erected.

Of course, this was third book he was reading on wards and he had already learned and set up basic muggle repelling wards around his house back in London among other things to keep someone from entering his house while he was away at Hogwarts.

Setting up such simple ward was nothing impressive in his opinion but he was rather excited about the higher level wards that he would be able to set up in the future.

The Fidalius charm might have been named a charm but it also fell in the category of wards and it was not even among the top five wards from what he'd read.

He spent the next few minutes talking with her about Wards in hopes that she would quickly get bored by all the information and lose her interest but after ten whole minutes, he realized why she was a Ravenclaw.

Truthfully, he could have used his shroud to cover himself and make himself seem boring so that she would lose interest but Dumbledore and Quirrlemort were both sitting at the head table and probably eying him every now and then so it would be rather unwise to use his shroud right now.

It seems that sitting in the great hall might prove to be rather time consuming.

Harry gazed at the head table in order to pass time and saw the different professors sitting in the long table.

It always fascinated him how there were so few teachers in Hogwarts considering how it was said to be the greatest wizarding school in Britain or even in the whole Europe. And even among those teachers, some were rather useless like Binns, Snape, Quirrel and Trelawny. All of whom will be teaching him pretty soon.

He wondered why he had not gone to Bauxbaton Academy instead.

Oh yes, the different artifacts in here and the room of requirements. Plus, if he left Hogwarts then the future will change by a huge margin making his future knowledge practically useless.

Not that he planned to rely on it either. But knowing something will be better than knowing nothing. And he knew quite a few things about Hogwarts.

In fact, the simple presence of The Room of Requirement was more than enough to triumph over all the downsides of attending Hogwarts.

As his gaze continued to rove over the head table he saw Dumbledore looking back at him as well and as their gazes connected Harry felt something touch over his occulumency shields and averted his gaze as naturally as he could and felt the touch disperse.

So it was true that Dumbledore read the mind of students.

Then it was a good thing that he learned Occlumency before coming here.

He then continued to look over the rest of the professors in the table and had to once again avert his eyes when Snape tried to use legillimency on him.

Truly, learning Occulumency was the best thing he'd done in his time back at home even though his shields were only paper thin.

At that moment, he felt a searing pain pass through his scar and he immediately knew the cause of this as he saw the turban of Professor Quirrel turned toward him and quickly averted his gaze in order to look at Padma and felt the pain lessen by a bit.

"Are you alright?" she asked with concern as she noticed the grimace on his face but he quickly donned on the stoic mask and shook his head.

"I'm alright." He said and wondered why he could not have sat with someone who was willing to give him his privacy.

"I think you are the only person in the whole school who reads a book on the first day of…" she was suddenly cut off as another boy sitting in front of them bent forward toward them and said "Are you a parselmouth?"

His words permeated through the table and Harry found himself under the scrutiny of many gazes and sighed inwardly. Hopefully this is just a one day thing and once the kind of person he was, they would stop bothering him.

"Yes." He said and gave the boy a cold stare which accomplished the job of shutting him mouth before he could ask anything else.

The others continued to look at him for a moment longer but he took out a book and started ignoring them and when no one else asked him any more questions, their curiosity dropped and they went about doing their own thing and Harry found peace in his book once again until the end of the feast where Dumbledore announced that forbidden forest was forbidden and that anyone who goes to the third floor will meet a quick end and blah blah blah.

Harry could feel Dumbledore's eyes on him at the end of the feast but he completely ignored the old man and went with the Prefect who took them to the Ravenclaw tower.

He had personally never seen the Ravenclaw tower in the movie so this was something new for him and he was rather delighted by their arrangements.

Aside from the portrait that only allows them entry only when you give the answer to it's riddle, he liked the rest of the house quite well.

He was never really good with riddles.

The tower was an ancient structure so he was not overly bothered or surprised by it's old but majestic decorations.

The ravenclaw common room was a large wide circular room with large windows that allowed ample sunlight for students to read their books. It was connected with the stairs that led to the girls and boys rooms along with the Personal Library that this house was so famous for.

Harry could see some older students sitting and studying in the common room already and smirked at their typical Ravenclaw behavior.

He was glad that he was selected in Ravenclaw. If he went to Gryffindor then people would bother him unnecessarily and expect him to be some kind of hero which was something that he deeply despised. If he went to Hufflepuf, he would have been swarmed by wellwishers who would want to help him at every turn. And if he went to Slytherin, he would be surrounded by enemies so he was not even willing to entertain that idea.

It was not that the Ravenclaws wouldn't bother him as Padma already proved that such was not the case but once the novelty worn off, they would not disturb him anymore which would allow him to go about with his plans as he wished.

The Prefect… someone whose name he didn't care to remember told them about the basic common and unspoken rules of the house before taking them to their respective rooms.

Unlike Gryffindor where all the students of the same class were tossed in the same room, Ravenclaw only allowed two students to live in a room. The older students could even apply for single rooms and if their marks are up to Professor Flitwick's satisfaction.

Not that it mattered to him as he never planned on spending too much time in the Ravenclaw tower anyway.